


Devil's Ransom

by JeanGraham



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 09:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20562137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: When an old enemy seeks revenge on LaCroix, Nick refuses to help.





	Devil's Ransom

Devil's Ransom 

* * *

  
by Jean Graham   


He sensed _another._

Lacroix stood on the rooftop, savoring the wind, the cold, the   
night itself, and listened. The signature was faint and somehow,   
in some way, a part of his own. Neither Nicholas' nor Janette's.   
Older. Stronger. And near.

He should have been able to discern it more clearly. But his   
recovery -- his literal return from the gates of Death -- over the   
past year-and-a-half, had been long and arduous, taking much from   
him. His powers were not what they had once been, though that   
would come, with time. And Lacroix had all the time he would ever   
need.

Only last night he had at last revealed himself to Nicholas.   
Nicholas, his son and his slayer. Nicholas, who still clung so   
stubbornly to his sham of a mortal life and to his inchoate quest   
to obtain genuine mortality. (Well, they would shortly put paid to   
that.) Lacroix would forever cherish the dismay, the disbelief,   
the utter terror he had seen last night in Nicholas' eyes. Had his   
son wondered, perchance, why his master had given up on their   
battle so easily?

No matter.

Let him wonder.

Lacroix's powers -- all of them -- would very soon be his again,   
and then he would exact precisely what his treacherous offspring   
must now be dreading most.

He would have his revenge.

The vibration of the Other assaulted him anew, and he lifted his   
face to the wind. He sensed tremendous age, perhaps as great as   
his own, and strength -- an ancient, confident vitality.

But what Ancient would come here to call out to him thus, and why?

He concentrated, divining a direction from the strength of the   
bond. Then, with a triumphant smile, he took to the air.

It seemed an odd place for an Ancient to dwell. Outside the city,   
along an overgrown and long-forgotten road, lay the crumbling   
remains of a mine from which mortals had once scratched and gouged   
all traces of a vein of copper. More than a century had passed   
since any mortal had toiled in its chiseled passageways of earth   
and stone. But in the here and now, an immortal waited there. For   
him.

Lacroix landed outside the mine's entry shaft, strode past a   
weathered NO TRESPASSING sign, and made his way through the ruined   
entryway. Someone had already pried away boards that had been   
nailed there to keep away human adventure-seekers. His quarry,   
perhaps?

He walked into the tunnel, immediately aware of dank, moldy odors   
emanating from the walls and from rotted timbers stretching both   
overhead and between the metal rails beneath his feet. Lantern   
light glowed dully from farther down the passage, and from   
somewhere came the incessant drip-drip-drip of seeping water. It   
was the only sound. Yet, the vibrations told him, the Other was   
here. Somewhere.

"Oh, come now," he said to the seemingly empty tunnel. "Have we   
not had enough with games? Show yourself."

A woman's voice answered him in ancient Latin. "You are weak,   
Lucius."

He wheeled, still seeing no one. But he _knew_ that voice. It   
couldn't be, of course -- she had died a mortal death nineteen   
centuries ago, and she had never been--

"You really didn't know?" the disembodied voice taunted. "Well, I   
suppose, then, I shall have to forgive you for never saying hello."

"You cannot be Seline," he insisted. "It isn't possible."

"No? You were never so naive when I knew you, General. Our   
daughter and our Master granted me eternity scant hours before she   
gave the same gift to you. And you repaid her for that honor by   
removing her head!"

"I had no choice," he growled. Futilely, he turned another   
complete circle, angry that he could not locate her. "Why do you   
hide? Show yourself!"

"Oh, I shall, Lucius. I shall."

The sound of vampiric flight whispered from above. Lacroix looked   
up in time to see her fly at him from the narrow confines of a   
ventilation shaft.

He barely had time to register the sharpened length of wood she   
bore until she struck him with enough force to drive it deep into   
his heart.

"Damn you, Lucius," she swore from somewhere in the haze of blood   
red mist that suddenly floated above him. "Damn you..."

  
* * *

  
"I'm tellin' ya, this is one big dead end. D-e-a-d, dead," Schanke   
opined as they left the shift's third potential-witness interview.   
He proceeded to outline all the reasons _why_ this investigation   
was going nowhere, beginning with the fact that all the previous   
witnesses to this particular suspect's crimes had ended up floating   
face down in Lake Ontario.

Having no inclination to disagree with his partner's assessment,   
Nick simply let him ramble as they walked toward the parked Caddy.   
He'd had little enthusiasm for the job tonight anyway: he'd   
literally been jumping at shadows all evening, expecting any one of   
them at any moment to materialize into Lacroix. That his newly-   
resurrected tormentor would seek revenge went without saying. When   
and where...

Nick shivered, and despite his immunity to the cold, drew his coat   
lapels closer together. At least he had warned Natalie to be on   
her guard, to carry garlic and wear a cross, though even that might   
not be enough to deter Lacroix. He wished he could stay with her,   
protect her from any threat Lacroix might pose. He wished--

"Hello! Nick?" Schanke was waving five fingers in his face.   
"Have you heard a single thing I've been saying here? Hello?"

"What?" Nick started at the sudden intrusion. "Uh, sorry Schanke,   
I was just--"

The pain struck without warning, slamming into his chest with all   
the force of a battering ram. It drove him, gasping, to his knees,   
and instantly Schanke was beside him, grasping his shoulders and   
shouting.

"Nick! What is it, what's wrong? Nick?"

The vibration of vampiric linkage between sire and son reached   
outward, clutched and tore at him with the agonized desperation of   
a death scream. _"Lacroix!"_

"What? Who? C'mon Nick, you're scaring the hell outa me. I   
swear, if this is that screwball diet of yours again..."

Nick grabbed hold of the hand Schanke had placed on his arm and   
squeezed, concentrating on its warmth, its mortality, its   
_humanity_ until the pain dulled enough to let him speak.

"It's all right. I'm all right."

"Like hell you are." Schanke pulled him back to his feet, grunting   
at the effort. "Listen, pard, if you're having a heart attack or   
something, lemme call an ambulance so they can--"

"It's okay." Still fighting to close off the connection, Nick had   
to whisper the words. "It's okay. It's just..." What to say?   
This wasn't going to sound at all convincing. "...fatigue. I   
guess I was a lot more tired than I thought after... after last   
night."

Schanke would assume he simply meant the ordeal of his arrest,   
escape and final exoneration. The fact that he'd come face to face   
with a far more malevolent terror was something the mortal world   
could never know.

Nick dug the car keys from his pocket and pressed them into his   
partner's hand. "Schank, do me a favor? Take the Caddy back to   
the station and book off for me?"

"What? But how're you gonna get--? Nick!!" The final plaintive   
syllable accompanied his hasty departure, delaying vampire speed   
until he'd rounded a corner and could safely take flight.

The pain, controlled but omnipresent, plagued him all the way to   
the loft.

  
* * *

  
Lacroix opened his eyes.

She remained near. He could still discern that much, though his   
senses -- even the pain -- were beginning to diminish. He lay   
awkwardly across the metal rails and splintered planks of the ore   
track. The stake through his chest pinned him quite neatly, in   
fact, to one of the wooden cross ties.

He smiled grimly. Always the fastidiously tidy one, Seline.

She approached him from the left. Though he could not turn his head   
to see her, her soft tread and her scent were as unmistakable now   
as they had been all those centuries ago.

"Are you comfortable, General?" the familiar voice taunted, and   
the gold-edged hem of her white gown, very like one she had worn in   
Pompeii, floated into his limited line of sight. The rest of her   
followed as she knelt beside him, a cloth-wrapped bundle cradled in   
her arms like a newborn child. "I have brought you a gift," she   
said, her voice a soft, caressing purr. "One of your successors in   
the art of war -- another general, in fact -- looted it from an   
English castle during yet another of those tedious little religious   
squabbles. You were always so _generous_ with gifts. Do you   
remember? How can I do less than to return the favor?"

She lay the bundle on the ground, unfolded the cloth, and with her   
bare hands, lifted out an ornate silver crucifix. No trace of   
smoke rose from her fingers as she held the accursed thing, and   
Lacroix, wincing at the mere sight of it, loathed her for that. No   
matter how often he had sworn, to himself, to Nicholas, to the   
world, that he held no belief in this slain Nazarene carpenter...

"Lovely, is it not?" Seline queried sweetly. Her free hand stroked   
his cheek with the seductive sensuality she had once lavished on   
the wealthy patrons of her brothel -- of whom General Lucius had   
indeed been the most generous. In one rapid, vengeful movement,   
she pressed the cold silver to his forehead, smiling at the   
instantaneous result. Lacroix clamped his teeth against the   
searing pain: he would not give her the pleasure of hearing him cry   
out. He directed the agony away instead, toward those who would   
feel but not be harmed by it. To Janette. To Nicholas.

"Tsk, tsk, General!" Seline withdrew the crucifix, reveling in the   
acrid odor of singed flesh it left behind. "Whenever did you come   
to espouse a belief in this upstart Christian god?"

Having no desire to address that subject, he broached another.   
"Why have you come here?" he whispered. "Divia has been dead for   
centuries. Why now?"

"Oh, for so many reasons, my dear, _sweet_ Lucius. I have, unlike   
you, nearly infinite patience. And I am no fool. Did you yourself   
not once tell me that the time to strike is when your enemy is at   
his weakest? Or perhaps, when he is just r_ecovering_ from his   
weakness and is so very, arrogantly sure of himself. Better still,   
wait until he is on the brink of his own coup, his own revenge, and   
then..." With overt, sensuous obscenity, she ran her fingers down   
the side of his face and across his chest to caress the protruding   
shaft of the stake that impaled him. "It is deliciously ironic,   
isn't it? You murder your maker only to have your own whelp   
perpetuate the infamy by trying to murder you. Such _inspiring_   
family loyalty. And such a pity that your progeny was too inept to   
properly finish the job."

"A mistake," he murmured, "which you do not intend to repeat."

"No." Her brittle laughter accompanied her hand's climb to the top   
of the stake, which she grasped and shifted just enough to make him   
grimace. "When _this_ has done its work, I will quite happily   
separate you from your head and then burn what is left of you to   
ashes -- which I shall scatter to Aeolus from the four corners of   
the world. All the gods of Olympus could not regenerate you then."

"So very thorough." He tried to smile.

"I'm certain our daughter and Master would agree." Abruptly, she   
leaned forward and kissed him, brutally, before returning to her   
feet. "Good-bye, Lucius."

The gold braid of her hem rasped against his cheek as she turned   
and walked away.

  
* * *

  
Janette's long-familiar signature assailed Nick as he landed on the   
loft's broad expanse of roof. He went in through the skylight, as   
he sensed that she had done, alighting in time to meet her outraged   
gaze when she spun from the fireplace.

"What have you done?!"

Taken aback, he caught her by both hands when she flew at him and   
held her fast. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, Nicola, don't do this. Not again. Not after all he   
has gone through to return to us!"   


Nick released her hands and grabbed her, almost savagely, by the   
shoulders instead. "You knew," he accused.

She stared at him, confused. "What? That he had come back? Of   
course I knew. I felt him, as you did."

"More than that. You knew he wasn't dead. All along, all this   
time, you've known."

She didn't deny it. "Please, tell me where he is," she begged,   
"before it is too late!"

"How did he come back?" he demanded. "Tell me how."

"Nicola, please--"

He shook her. "Tell me! I saw him burn, Janette..." He glanced   
to the blistered paint on the elevator door. "...pinned to that   
door by a flaming stake. I scattered the ashes. He was dead!"

_"Non!_ You saw only the coat he wore flutter to the ground in   
flames after he himself had flown. But you hurt him, Nicola. More   
than anyone has ever done. And now if you have again--"

_"Rien."_ He shoved her angrily away, stalking to the table.   
"I've done _nothing_ to him."

"Then... who...?"

"How should I know?" Still fighting the link's inexorable pain, he   
stormed to the refrigerator, snatching a green glass bottle from   
inside and ripping out the cork to take a long draught.

It didn't help.

"We must find him. Help him."

"No!" He shoved the bottle back into the refrigerator and slammed   
the door. "Whoever it is has done _me_ an enormous favor. He's   
saved me the trouble of killing him again."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I?" He turned on her, barely containing the yellow glow   
that anger threatened to bring out in his eyes.

Janette's eyes were filling with crimson-tinted tears. "Do you   
really hate him so much?"

He glared at her, _through_ her, and said nothing.

She nodded, two of the tears escaping to run down her cheeks.   
"Lacroix told me once that in your hatred, you had cast him as the   
Devil. And so, he said, the Devil he would be." She started for   
the door. "I will find him myself."

In a blur of motion, he moved to block her path. "Don't do that."   
His enmity for Lacroix was tempered now by another emotion: a   
concern for her that, try as he might, he could not suppress. "If   
this is a Hunter, you know full well this may be exactly what he   
expects of you. Of _us._ You'd be walking into a trap."

"How can I simply _stand_ here? He is _dying!"_

"Then let him--"

The new onslaught of pain struck them both, redoubled through their   
own link to each other. Nick wheeled away from her, clutching at   
the grand piano for support until the fire in his chest had   
lessened -- somewhat. She was beside him in another moment,   
touching, entreating.

"Please, Nicola. Go to him. Help him!"

Again, he grasped her hands and forced them firmly away, returning   
his own to the piano lest he fall. "I don't understand." His   
words came out in breathless gasps. "Why? Why do we feel his pain   
_now?_ Before... when he 'died,' we felt nothing."

"Perhaps _you_ felt nothing." The loathing in her voice gave the   
phantom stake in his heart a wrenching twist. "He would hardly cry   
out for help to his murderer!" She paced away, back to the center   
of the loft's wide floor, then turned, her blue eyes pleading.   
"Come with me. _Please."_

Come with her? Save the life of the monster who had made his own   
existence a living hell for over seven hundred years? How could   
she ask this of him, when she knew, had often witnessed, the   
cruelties he'd endured? He forced himself upright, deliberately   
turned his back on her and staggered toward the elevator, colliding   
with the burned door and placing a hand to its blackened scar.   
"No," he said. And there was an end to it. He would not go.

The sound of her flight left air stirring in the loft, and took   
with it a half-portion of Lacroix's pain. Nick flew to the   
skylight, emerged onto the loft's graveled roof, and turned to   
search the night sky.

"Janette!!"

Nothing but his own voice echoed back to him.

  
* * *

  
Janette followed her instincts, as Lacroix himself had long ago   
taught her to do. Her anger became rage as she felt her sire's   
pain draw nearer. By the time she landed at the mine's entrance,   
her eyes glowed a deep, burning red. Whoever had dared to harm   
Lacroix would now die for that offense. She would take great   
pleasure in personally tearing the Hunter to pieces.

Soundless, she crept into the tunnel, started down the passageway -   
\- and barely stifled a scream when she came upon the grisly sight   
of her Master staked to the railroad ties at her feet.

_"Lacroix!"_

She started to reach for the hideous length of wood, to clutch it   
with both hands and wrench it free. But before she could grasp it,   
something flew at her from above, struck her and bore her to the   
rough-hewn wall.

Janette cursed herself for a fool: she had expected a _mortal_   
adversary, not one of their own. And this one was strong -- so   
incredibly strong. She fought with all the power she possessed,   
but the Other overcame her with ease, forcing her to the ground.   
She saw a flash of silver and cried out when a heavy crucifix was   
pressed to her throat. The creature wielding it, she realized for   
the first time, was a woman. A beautiful woman, but no one she had   
ever seen before.

Eyes still crimson, Janette struggled to shove the crucifix away --   
how was it this vampire could touch such a thing? -- but succeeded   
only in pushing it from the exposed flesh at her neck to a point on   
her chest where the top of her black satin evening gown protected   
at least part of her from its fire.

_"Chienne!"_ She added a more descriptive string of French   
adjectives and spat at her attacker. "Let me go!"

As if obeying the demand, the woman released her hold on the cross   
and rose. But Janette, lying half-propped against the earthen   
wall, found that she could not move, not even enough to strike this   
horrible silver thing from her breast. Enraged, she released a   
roar of vampiric frustration and swore again in still more vehement   
French.

The Other had drifted to stand beside Lacroix. His eyes, Janette   
could see, were open, but he had neither moved nor spoken.

"Really, Lucius. Is_ this_ the little French tart you rescued from   
the Parisian sewers?" The woman clucked her tongue like a scolding   
shrew-wife. "My, but the quality of whores has certainly   
diminished over the last few millennia. In my brothel, so scrawny   
a creature would not have been deemed fit to scrub the bath-house   
floor."

Janette snarled at her again, but the ineffectual protest was   
ignored.

"And now..." From somewhere in the shadows, Lacroix's tormentor   
had drawn a double-bladed miner's axe. "I think perhaps we should   
finish this tedious business, before any more of your fledglings   
come to roost."

"Too late."

The woman wheeled -- and Janette's heart leaped -- at the intrusion   
of a new voice. Nicola stood farther down the narrow tunnel (how   
had he come in that way?), holding a rusted and guttering lamp in   
one hand and his police revolver in the other. The fool. Did he   
think to stop her with bullets?

"Put the axe down and move away from him," he ordered. It was   
every inch the 'cop' speaking and not the vampire. Janette wanted   
to scream at him, but held her tongue.

The Other had complied with neither of his requests. "Ah, the   
rebellious Nicholas, is it not? Such fickle offspring you have   
sired, Lucius. On one night, he impales you with a flaming stake   
and now, on another, he seeks to _save_ your miserable life   
instead. What manner of son is this?"

"I will not justify myself to you," Nicola said, and Janette smiled   
at his deep, threatening tone. _This_ was the Nicola she had known   
over the centuries: the one who could be so very charming in one   
moment -- and so very deadly in the next. "Do as I say."

"Or what?" the woman mocked him. "You will shoot me?"

"Yes. However long you've been among us, you should know by now   
that things are not always so innocent as they appear. Put it   
down. Now."

She began to laugh at him, and in contempt of his demand, raised   
the axe above her head, prepared to bring it down across Lacroix's   
exposed throat.

Nicola pulled the trigger.

His gun made an odd, hollow sound that echoed in the tunnel.   
Lacroix's would-be executioner froze in place to glare at Nicola   
with yellow eyes.

"The bullets are wood-tipped," he said coldly. "And the next one   
will go straight into your heart."

For a fleeting moment, Janette thought the woman might concede   
defeat. But with a shriek of unbridled fury, she held the axe   
aloft and launched herself at Nicola instead. He fired twice more,   
and at the same time, hurled the lantern to collide with her in the   
air.

The blood-curdling scream that followed made Janette fear that the   
tunnel walls might collapse around them. The axe clattered to the   
ground as a ball of flame erupted in mid-air above Nicola: he   
barely had time to drop and roll away before it landed, flailing   
madly, on the spot where he had stood.   


The screaming went on for several horrible, unbearable seconds,   
until at last the noise and feeble struggling ceased, and the last   
blackened remnants of a once-white gown folded in upon themselves   
and collapsed with a soft _whoosh _into a heap of smoldering ashes.

Nicola came to stand, for a moment, over the remains. Then,   
stooping to retrieve the fallen axe, he moved to Lacroix's side and   
knelt there. Janette was surprised to hear a weak but familiar   
voice whisper, "My thanks, Nicholas. It appears I shall again be   
in your debt."

It would be over now. Nicola would remove the stake and it would   
all be over. Why did he hesitate? Surely he would not... She   
screamed when the axe flashed upward in Nicola's hand, descended --   
and stopped with its rusted blade resting against Lacroix's throat.

"Make no mistake," Nicola breathed. "I didn't do this for you.   
Nor will I remove this little 'hindrance' for you -- unless my   
price is met." The blade pressed harder until it began to draw   
blood. "Refuse, or go back on your word later, and I swear to you,   
I'll finish what she started here."

Janette could hear the cold smile creeping into Lacroix's voice.   
"You do appear to have me at a distinct disadvantage. What would   
you ask of me, then?"

"Your word. Your _oath,_ Lacroix, that you will not interfere in   
my life here again. Not with your intrigues, your petty revenge or   
your mindless killing. Give me your word."

"You know I could never deny you anything, Nicholas."

Cruelly, the axe blade bit deeper. "Swear it!" Nicola hissed.

Lacroix was forced, now, to choke the words out. "Very well...   
You have my word. Now... if you please..."

For several, terrible seconds, it seemed that Nicola would not   
believe him. But then he flung the blood-stained axe away, grasped   
the shaft of the wooden stake with both hands and began to pull.

Janette could not bear to watch. But though she closed her eyes   
and turned her head away, the hideous sucking sound of the stake   
pulling free and Lacroix's strangled cry as it did so were enough   
to twist her stomach into a small, sickened knot. She heard the   
hollow _thunk_ of the stake landing somewhere in the tunnel beyond.   
Then someone was beside her, putting a soft, caring hand to the   
side of her face and murmuring her name. She opened her eyes.

"Nicola..."

"Shh. _Un moment..."_

He glanced down at her and was at once forced to look away again.   
But his strong hands went under her, lifted and turned her until   
the hated symbol of the Light fell away. Then he gathered her into   
his arms and held her, as he had done so often, so long ago. For   
a prolonged moment, she clung to him, drawing strength from those   
memories. Then, remembering Lacroix, she broke free and started   
toward him. "He will need blood. We must--"

"No." Nicola stopped her with a firm grip on both her hands.   
"I've done with him, and with all that he is. If you wish to   
coddle him, then by all means, go on playing the part of the   
dutiful, loving daughter." His grasp on her hands tightened   
meaningfully. "But remind him, now and then, that if he fails to   
keep his promise, I will _not_ fail to keep mine!"

She met his eyes with both hurt and anger reflected in her own.   
"You are wrong to hate him so," she started to say, but before the   
words were formed, he had released her, and in a brief rush of   
wind, had vanished from the tunnel.

"Always so very angry, our Nicholas." Lacroix was attempting, with   
little success, to sit up on the gore-soaked railway ties. Janette   
hurried to his side, gently pushing him back again.

_"Non._ You must not try to rise yet. First you must drink..."   
She offered him her wrist, a gift he readily accepted. When he had   
taken all that she could give, he did sit up, and at once turned   
his gaze to the ashen remains of his torturer on the floor before   
them.

"Who was she, Lacroix? Why did she wish to destroy you?"

He regained his feet with a grace that belied his recent brush with   
True Death, and strode to where the ashes lay. "Perhaps," he said,   
"I will tell you. One day." Then he knelt, and bizarrely, began   
to gather the powdery remains into his hands, filling first one   
pocket of his long, black coat and then the other.

"What are you _doing?"_ Janette was convinced that he had gone   
quite mad.

Lacroix tidily dusted his hands, and with seemingly idle disdain,   
spread the rest of the ashes about the earthen floor with his foot.

She followed him out into the night, where he circled to carefully   
survey the cloud-shrouded sky. He favored her, then, with a   
parting smile. "I have an appointment," he said, "with Aeolus."

Then he was gone.

\- End -

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>  



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